


266. eden

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [76]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-14
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:36:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033416
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: “You don’t have to do this,” Sarah says – keeping her voice low, the way you keep it when you don’t want to spook an animal. “You said we had a connection, yeah? Are you really gonna lock me up?”“You’ll run,” Helena says. “It’s okay! I would have run also, the first time they locked me in a cage.” She smiles, like this is reassuring.





	266. eden

**Author's Note:**

> [warnings: reference to abuse, self-harm, gore; starvation]

Sarah wakes up in a cage, in a black room where lanterns swing seasick from metal beams. There’s a chair next to the cage and Helena has somehow stuffed herself into it; she’s dozing, one foot sprawled over the arm of the chair and dangling into empty air. Her tanktop is still stained red with blood from where Sarah had stabbed her with rebar. Sarah’s head hurts. There is no one else around.

She thinks about untying Helena’s shoe, pulling out the shoelace, saving it for – something – but it’s too late: Helena wakes up, eyes wide, slithers out of the chair and hits the group with a _thump_. She crouches in front of the cage, face-to-face with Sarah.

“Hello,” she breathes.

“Helena,” Sarah says coaxingly, “let me out.”

“I can’t,” Helena says sadly. “Not until you show that you are worthy, that you can be saved. Tomas said.” She reaches out a hand towards the cage and then lets it drop before it gets within Sarah’s reach. Then she brightens. “But I’ll feed you. It won’t be so bad. Nothing is so bad, if you can eat.”

She fumbles in the pockets of her big green coat and drops a candy bar through the spaces in the wire – snake-quick, before Sarah can grab her wrist, she’s gone again. The candy bar sits on Sarah’s leg. It’s warm. She doesn’t touch it.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sarah says – keeping her voice low, the way you keep it when you don’t want to spook an animal. “You said we had a connection, yeah? Are you really gonna lock me up?”

“You’ll run,” Helena says. “It’s okay! I would have run also, the first time they locked me in a cage.” She smiles, like this is reassuring, and then – there’s clanking from outside, and Helena’s head snaps whip-quick to the door. Her shoulders droop inwards. She is suddenly so much smaller.

“I’ll be back,” she says. “You should eat now. Before he sees it, and takes it away.” And then in a flurry of parka and blonde curls she’s out the door and gone.

* * *

When Helena comes back, she isn’t wearing the parka; she shivers in the dark, but pulls a smashed plastic water bottle out of her back pocket and pushes it through the cage bars. When she does this Sarah can see a huge red patch on the back of her tanktop. _Poor kid_ , she thinks before she can stop herself. She takes the water. It hasn’t been opened; she drinks maybe a third, puts it in the back of the cage.

“Smart,” Helena says. Her voice wobbles, like she’s been crying. “I used to drink the whole thing.” She trails off, shakes her head once. “No.”

“Please,” Sarah says. “I have a family, Helena. They need me.”

“ _I_ need you,” Helena says, vicious and very very sad. She sits on the floor next to the cage, leans against the wall. Sarah shuffles around in the cage to look at her. Her legs are cramping up.

“Can’t we be family?” Helena whispers. “I don’t have one. Can’t it be you?”

“Not while I’m in here,” Sarah tells her. “Come on, Helena, you know that’s true.”

“No I don’t,” Helena mutters. She folds her arms on her knees and smashes the bottom of her face into them. Sarah just looks back at her. She laces her fingers through the gaps in the cage, desperate.

“I can tell you a story,” Helena says. “Sometimes that helps. It makes the cage feel less small, and lonely, if there is a story in there with you.”

“Okay,” Sarah says gently. Her bones are humming from inaction. She wishes there was anything but Helena, to be a key to let her out.

“Okay,” Helena echoes. She sighs and twists her head so it’s her cheek resting on her arms, not her chin. “Once upon times…”

* * *

Helena darts in sporadically to bring her food – not much, an apple, half a sandwich, another candy bar. Her hands are very shaky. Sarah wonders if _Helena_ is eating, but she’s not going to refuse the food – hunger is a horrible pit where her stomach should be, all tangled up with fear. The times when Helena isn’t there, the room looks too much the way she feels; she has to mutter stories to herself, or she starts needing to scream.

She hates that she’s conditioned to perk up at the sound of the door opening. But she is. Helena is food and Helena is not being alone and Helena is a chance of someday, someday getting out of this cage. Helena is lonely and Helena is terrified and Helena is the only person Sarah has touched since she woke up with a lump on her head and a world made of cage bars.

It was only once. Their fingers brushed.

You can understand how Helena is the way she is, after – well. However long it’s been.

* * *

The door rattles open and a man fills the doorway, blocking the light. He must be Tomas: he looks like he is made out of fists. Sarah is so tired, and so hungry, and she just looks at him through the cage bars.

Someone is yelling _no, no, no_ , but she doesn’t think it’s her.

Tomas falls backwards, out of the room. The world bangs and crashes and then it’s all very quiet.

* * *

When Helena comes back, there is a spreading bruise across her face and she keeps her thumbs tucked into her fists. She sits down next to the cage and leans against it, sideways, the side of her head pressed to the cage bars. She is silent.

Sarah is silent too, but: she shuffles around so she’s mirroring Helena, on the other side of the bars.

“He’s gone,” Helena says dully. “I had to choose. And I chose you. And now he’s gone, and there is only me and only you.”

“Helena,” Sarah whispers weakly, and: “please.”

“It was always supposed to be like this,” Helena says, frowning at some vague point of floor. She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself. “Just us two. Right?”

Sarah doesn’t answer.

“Right?” Helena says, quieter now, and she opens one of her fists. Her thumb is smeared with blood and something whitish. In her palm she’s holding the key to the cage.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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